Forgotten
by Solo Ensemble
Summary: Spinelli gives Jason some very distressing news about an event that occurred while Jason was still a Quartermaine.


**Note – This is most likely a one-shot, about 99.99, but there's still a 0.01 chance that it will be continued. Maybe. Ish.**

**Forgotten**

Brenda frowned when the front door to Penthouse IV opened to reveal a dirty, disheveled, and very hungry looking man. "Jason. Uh, were we expecting you?"

He spared her a bland look and stripped off his jacket, dropping the muddy thing right on Sonny's handsome black leather desk chair. "It's time for dinner, isn't it?"

She smirked despite herself even as she quickly crossed the room to retrieve his jacket. Brenda propped the door open with her foot and dusted as much dried mud as she could out onto the hall carpet. "So it is, stupid question. You look hungry."

"Starving," he agreed, flopping down on the couch and sitting on one of her pretty little satin throw pillows. Sometimes he thought his best friend's wife filled their penthouse with so much frilly, girly stuff just so she could laugh at how extra-oafish he looked whenever he came over. "What'd Sonny make?"

"I think we're having lasagna tonight," Brenda replied, neatly hanging his jacket in the coat closet after making sure all their other coats were a safe distance away. She had learned her lesson that one time Jason's stupid jacket got mud all over her brand new white pea coat. "And Sonny's making rolls and a Caesar salad with the non-creamy dressing that you like."

The enforcer's stomach grumbled loudly in response, and he patted it while simultaneously reaching for the remote in way of appeasement. "Sounds good."

Brenda made a face when she noticed his muddy boots sitting on her cute little coffee table. "Don't you think you should go wash up?"

"I will," he replied, sounding infernally bored as he clicked through the channels at the rate of a dozen per second. It sure seemed that way, at any rate. "Just have to wash my hands."

"More like bathe in Lysol," she grimaced. "Where were you, anyway? And how do you always get so dirty?"

"The bike spun out," Jason shrugged. "Got a little messy."

"You're all right, aren't you?"

He waved away her concern. "Yeah, yeah. It was a mud shoulder instead of a gravel one, so, yeah. Have to hose down the bike tomorrow."

"Don't you think you should go shower?" Brenda suggested, giving him a little poke for extra persuasion. "Or change at the very least?"

"I will, I will," Jason practically yawned. "When's the food going to be done?"

"It'll feel like it's done a lot sooner if you go shower," she replied brightly, shoving his heavy legs off her table. "Oh, look, you ripped one of my magazines. Ape."

"Hey, have you seen Spinelli?" Jason finally looked up when she stood in front of the television, blocking his view. "Haven't seen the kid all day."

"He's been at the warehouse in his little war room, working on something," Brenda answered. "I stopped by this afternoon to go to lunch with Sonny, and he was typing away. And from what I hear, he's still there. You guys work him way too hard."

"We haven't given him an assignment in about a week," he shrugged. "He's probably playing one of his games. Zork Zero or Halo or something. Some stupid game."

"Yeah," she snorted, "the same stupid game I caught you playing with him last week?" She smirked when he managed a sheepish look. "Yeah, I thought so. Why don't you call him? See where he is, and tell him to get his little nerd butt home for dinner."

He pulled his phone out of his pocket and hit the second speed dial option. "Okay, I'll see if I can get a hold of him. Yeah, Spinelli. It's me. What are you doing? No, Sonny and Brenda want you over for dinner in ten minutes, tops. Okay, fine. Yeah, fine, tell me when you get here. Okay."

He shook his head and flipped his phone off. "Kid does not shut up."

"He compensates for you," Brenda replied sweetly, swatting the back of his head with her torn magazine. "Someone has to."

Jason rolled his eyes and stretched his arms across the back of the couch. In the kitchen, Sonny could be heard singing some old Cuban love song and pulling a tray out of the oven. "He was on his way over."

"Yeah? What was that at the end? Sounded like he wanted to tell you something."

He shrugged. "He said he found something that was really important and that I had to know about."

Brenda frowned. "What do you think it is?"

"How the hell should I know?"

She resisted the urge to smack him again. "No, I mean, Spinelli doesn't usually get excited over nothing."

"Spinelli _always _gets excited over nothing."

"Not when it's about business," she insisted. "Do you think that's what it is? Something bad? Or did he sound like it was something good? What was his tone like, Jason? What inflection did he use?"

"…He said he found something really important that he had to tell me about."

"Yes, but what words did he emphasize?" Brenda persisted as Jason heaved a frustrated sigh and sank deeper into the cushions. "And what was his inflection like at the end of it?"

"How should I know? He said 'really' really loudly and sounded like he was hopping. Kid's always hopping. Like a fucking magpie or something."

Brenda let out a frustrated growl and stalked over to the dining table to remove three vases of fresh flowers so that Sonny could bring out the meal. "Oh, forget it. You're no good for anything. Go wash up, the food's almost done."

He did as she asked, for once, and by the time Jason and Spinelli both made their way back across the hall to Penthouse IV, Sonny had a heaping tray of lasagna, a large bowl of salad, and a full basket of rolls set out on the table. 

"Sit down, guys," he ordered, beckoning them to their seats. "Food's gonna get cold. Spinelli, were you still at the warehouse this late?"

The boy nodded as Jason, Brenda, and Sonny took their seats. "Yes, Mister Corinthos Sir, the Jackal was working on a private project and came up with something most important that Stone Cold – ahem, Stone Cold – should know about post haste."

Jason waved him away and reached over Brenda's plate for a roll that he immediately crammed into his mouth. "Tell me after dinner."

This caused the boy much consternation, and he began to wring his hands together. "Uh, Stone Cold, the Jackal really thinks-"

"Spinelli," Jason interrupted, adding a healthy portion of lasagna to his plate and practically smacking Brenda's hand as he reached for the salad. "Hungry. Eat."

The first one was an adjective for himself, the second one was a command to Spinelli. Brenda rolled her eyes, having spent the last few years becoming fluent in what Spinelli called "Stone Cold Speak," and resisted the urge to pinch his arm with the salad tongs. "Charming. It's mastered two syllable words."

"Uh, Stone Cold?" Spinelli was beginning to hop now, as Jason claimed he always did, and was sprightly shifting his weight from foot to foot. "I really think you should…listen to what I have to say?"

"Spinelli, if you want people to do what you say, you'll have to be more assertive than that," Sonny advised, waving his fork for emphasis. "Like, take your little friend Georgie for example."

He turned exactly two shades paler. "I wish you wouldn't, Mister Corinthos Sir."

"Now, if you wanted Georgie to do something, you'd have to be commanding and firm," Sonny continued. "If you wanted her to go out with you, for example, would you just go up to her and ask her? No."

He blinked. "Uh, I think I…would?"

Sonny shook his head. "No, you wouldn't. You'd…tell her. You'd be assertive."

"He's right," Jason agreed. "You just go up to a woman and tell them what you want, and if they're willing to do it, they're the kind you want to keep around. If not, that's it. Move on, find another woman. Works every time."

Brenda's fingernails dug into her palm and she glared darkly at the two imbeciles seated on either side of the table from her. "Spinelli, don't you dare listen to these idiots. One got himself a wife by begging on his hands and knees, and the other one dallies with STDs by having one anonymous sexual encounter after another. Trust me, these are _not _the men you want advising you about your little girlfriend problems."

Spinelli's lips tightened into a thin red line. "I don't have any girlfriend problems, Goddess, but the Jackal thanks you for your concern."

"Yeah," Jason agreed, shoveling a forkful of seasoned ground beef into his mouth and talking around it. "You have to actually have a girlfriend to have girlfriend problems. Thank God I don't have to deal with any of that shit."

Brenda rolled her eyes and contemplated, just for a second, sticking her fork in his eye. "Yeah, you thank God for that, and I'll thank Him for gifting all of his intelligent, worthwhile female creations with enough sense not to give a whore like you the time of day."

"Brenda," her husband frowned. "We don't say 'whore' at the dinner table. Or in front of Spinelli."

"Are you kidding me?" She slammed her silverware down on the table and glared at all three of them. "Living with Jason, he's heard much worse. Hell, living with Jason, he probably spends more time per week with whores than he does with us!"

The boy actually considered it. "I'd have to say it was a tie, if anything."

Jason wasn't pleased with his almost-sister-in-law's less than stellar assessment of his love life. "Not every man wants to lop his balls off and give them to a woman as earrings. I'm happy with my life just the way it is."

"I'm just thinking of your best interests."

"You sound just like the Quartermaines every time you say that," he snorted.

Brenda pursed her lips, and Spinelli was the only one that noticed that the light in her eyes dimmed just slightly. "You know, I wouldn't wish a guy like you on any woman out there."

He licked marinara sauce off his thumb and grinned wolfishly at her. "So you can keep me to yourself?"

She laughed and punched his shoulder. "You wish. If I had to keep you to myself, I'd keep you chopped up in pieces under the floorboards, understand?"

Spinelli had resumed his hopping behind Brenda's seat. "Um, Stone Cold? A word?"

Sonny glanced up. "Spinelli, are you still standing there? Food's getting cold. Sit, eat."

"I really need to tell you something, Stone Cold," Spinelli blurted out, his voice a pitch higher than normal. "Now. It can't wait, and it's of the utmost importance."

Jason heaved a heavy sigh and finally turned around in his seat. "What?"

"Um…could we talk alone?"

His beloved mentor rolled his eyes and turned back to his plate. "Whatever you have to say to me, you can say in front of Sonny and Brenda. You know that."

"He's diseased, isn't he?" Brenda whispered loudly. "You hacked into his medical file and pulled his most recent tests, huh? Don't worry, we all saw it coming."

Jason turned to glare at her but before he could say a word, Spinelli interrupted. He had a very annoying and consistent way of doing that. 

"Okay, I think the best way to say this…most alarming news is to just say it," he started, making nervous gestures with his hands. "I was working on your website all day today because I want to have it ready for the official release date on your birthday-"

"My website?" Jason repeated incredulously. "I thought I told you to stop doing that."

As always, Spinelli ignored him and pushed on. "And I was doing last minute revisions and corrections and enhancements. I fixed the game section and added even more amusements, I updated the gallery, I added stuff to the Media sections, all sorts of things. Thank goodness for premium Photobucket accounts: I was able to upload twenty AIM icons and about fifty LiveJournal ones. Really, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised with what the Jackal has constructed in your honor."

"Stalker," Brenda sang under her breath, poking at her noodles with her fork.

"And I was making the final revisions to the Better Know A Stone Cold section – that's the biography – and I thought I'd add some lesser known facts about you," he continued, growing more and more flustered. "And I had previously written your marital status as Blissfully and Eternally Single, but then I thought it might be cool to run a search and do a comprehensive Friends and Foes list, and so I designed a search macro and set it up against multiple national databases and two international ones and, well…"

Jason stared at him, waiting for the climactic reveal. "What?"

"The Jackal found a most unexpected associate of yours that necessitates him changing your status," Spinelli eked out. "Stone Cold, who's…Elizabeth Webber?"

Jason and Sonny both frowned at the name, trying to remember where they'd heard it, and neither man noticed that Brenda's eyes widened or that she turned pale. They did, however, notice that she practically spit out her entire mouthful of lasagna.

"The name's familiar," Jason mused as Sonny quickly handed his wife a glass of water. "Elizabeth Webber. Wasn't she from around here?"

"She was," Brenda replied quietly, setting her glass down after taking a few small sips. "Her parents were friends with your – er, Alan and Monica. She moved here just before we started high school and then left for Columbia."

Spinelli's eyes widened. "The drug-ridden country?"

"The Ivy League university," she corrected gently. "She graduated early and then left for Europe."

Jason, Spinelli, and Sonny all looked at her expectantly. "And?"

Brenda frowned. "And, what?"

"You seem to know a lot about her," Sonny shrugged. "Anything else you remember?"

She clasped her hands in her lap, looking unusually uncomfortable. "I don't know a lot about her. I just remember her back when we were all at PC High. We, uh, hung out sometimes. Had a lot of the same friends."

Spinelli wondered if she avoided Jason's gaze on purpose.

"And we lost touch when she went to Europe," Brenda pushed on, trying to keep her voice firm and casual. "She wasn't really my friend, anyway. She was a good friend of my…best friend's, so we spent a lot of time together that way. She was a fun girl, I really started to like her. Jason, you, uh, I mean, Jason Quartermaine dated her for a while, too. But then she left for Europe after college – I think her grandparents live in England – and we never really spoke after that. I don't know where she is now, or what she's up to, or…anything, really."

Jason mulled this over for a long moment as Spinelli watched him and hoped for some spark of recognition but finally, his mentor just shrugged.

"Don't remember her." He set his fork down and looked up at Spinelli expectantly. "What does she have to do with me? Who is she?"

Spinelli indulged a nervous little laugh as his green eyes darted from one member of the Corinthos family to the next. "Uh, well, funny that you ask that, because…"

"Spinelli, be assertive," Sonny reminded him sternly.

"She's your wife," the boy blurted out. "You two have been married for about three years now."


End file.
